Free of charge Ideas for an Great Chicken Coop

Raising chickens has grown in recognition in current years, and a good deal of people are seeking for guidelines on how to build a chicken coop. This coop, developed and constructed by Natalie Dalpais of The Inventive Mom has to be a single of the very best we&#8217ve ever witnessed. It&#8217s sensible, with numerous attributes to make cleansing and egg gathering simpler. And perhaps greatest of all, it actually seems to be attractive! It looks like a traditional barn with a raised center aisle roof.A�

We have the directions right here, along with lots of helpful photos. Plus, we have the chicken coop plans and creating instructions in downloadable form so you can print them out. (You&#8217ll see a link in the Supplies Needed segment beneath.)

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My loved ones and I reside in a minor farm town. We are not farmers, not even shut, but occasionally we like to pretend that we are. Like when we received little one chicks a number of many years in the past when we were completely unprepared to raise chickens and built a really humble chicken coop (more like lean-to). I&#8217ve been somewhat embarrassed by our lean-to coop for some time now, so I determined to consider issues into my very own hands (and my dad&#8217s quite capable hands as well) and create a chicken coop we can be proud of. This coop is no lean-to! It&#8217s SUPER sturdy (sturdy sufficient that my children considered it was a exciting playhouse to play in right up until we put the chickens in).

It&#8217s also fairly massive. It&#8217s about 32 square feet, and can easily fit up to twelve chickens.

We&#8217ve been raising chickens in our lean-to coop for a number of many years now, so we&#8217ve learned a thing or two about what a good chicken coop must be like.

Make an Straightforward-to-Access Nesting Box

Very first up on our record was an straightforward-to-entry nesting box. The total cause we have chickens is to get fresh eggs daily. So our nesting box was 1 of our top priorities.

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Taking care of our chickens is primarily our son&#8217s responsibility. It&#8217s been actually good for him to understand how to care for animals and consider obligation for them. But, because we have a tiny boy collecting the eggs each day, we knew we necessary to make the nesting box effortlessly available for him.

We added a prop to hold the roof open, which I will demonstrate you how to build later on. And, we additional a little hook to the side of the laying box so he can hang his basket up while he gathers his eggs. It&#8217s hard for a tiny boy (or any person for that matter) to hold a basket and place the eggs in also. This small hook will conserve us a whole lot of cracked eggs.

Make It Straightforward to Clean

Another item on our priority listing is generating the coop effortless to clean. So when we had been designing the strategies for our coop, we determined to have 1 total side fold down.

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Allow me inform you from expertise, there is practically nothing worse than possessing to essentially climb in the coop to get it clean. With the side folded down, we can simply scoop all the yucky stuff out of the coop and laying box with no getting too deep into it.

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Considering that the side folds down, we had to also develop our coop up off the ground a small bit. This is excellent to maintain water, bugs and critters out of the coop that shouldn&#8217t be in there. Plus, the chickens don&#8217t look to thoughts. They like hanging out in the shade below the coop, and devote most of their day beneath there.

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It Need to Have Excellent Ventilation

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We left a minor room under the eaves to let for air circulation. That way the coop won&#8217t be as well sizzling and stuffy for the chickens all summer season.

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Make it Attractive

And the last item on my list was that I needed a CUTE coop. Considering that this creating is going to be in our backyard, I wished some thing I wouldn&#8217t mind searching at. And this cute red coop, with white trim is so quaint and charming. It has a raised aisle roof, like you see on many traditional barns. I just enjoy it.

And so do our chickens.

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Now you know how amazing this chicken coop is, I bet you want to construct your personal. Don&#8217t be concerned, I&#8217m going to walk you through each phase of the way.

Equipment Needed

How to Construct This Chicken Coop

Create the Frame Finish Pieces and Floor

Commence by cutting your 4 x four&#8242s (50A? in. on quick side of angle) with a 30-degree angle on best. Attach your 2 x four (41 in.) cross braces with fence brackets. You will build two of these for the ends.

After you&#8217ve acquired your ends built, you will hook them together with 2 x 4 (85 in.) stretchers, and a two x four (45 in.) across the middle to help the chicken coop floor.

You can just screw the middle 2 x 4 onto the side board with grabber screws. No bracket is required there.

Include the Plywood Floor

You will need to have to trim a bit off 1 end, making it 92 in. x 48 in. Soon after it&#8217s cut to size, you will use a reciprocating noticed and minimize 3A? in. x 3A? in.notches in the corners to match close to your 4 x four corner posts.

Then staple the plywood down to the 2 x four&#8242s.

Include Supports

Now you&#8217ll include 2 x 2 horizontal (85 in. on the sides and 41 in. on the ends) and vertical (19 in.) supports to the sides. We utilised brackets to attach our 2 x 4&#8242s, but we will attach our two x two&#8242s utilizing pocket holes. You can develop pocket holes utilizing a Kreg Jig, or you can freehand pocket holes with a drill.

We will also add 2 (19 in.) vertical 2 x 2&#8242s on the front finish (3 in. in from every side), these will help our nesting box later (see strategies under). Don’t forget, if you are screwing through a two x 2, you&#8217ll want to pre-drill your hole so you don&#8217t split the wood.

At this point, you should have something that seems rather close to this image over.

Frame the Upper Walls

Subsequent, you&#8217ll frame your upper walls, utilizing horizontal 2 x two&#8242s (89 in.) and vertical two x four&#8242s (13 in. for the center and 14A? in. minimize at thirty degrees for the ends.) Please note: the plans under demonstrate vertical two x 2&#8242s instead of two x 4&#8242s, like I utilised. Just use what you have, either way should function fine.) Use grabber screws to attach the upper frame to your lower frame.

Then, you&#8217ll add your two x 2 roof &#8220trusses&#8221:

four- 18 in. two x two&#8242s

4- 14A? in. two x 2&#8242s

two- 14A? in. two x four&#8242s

2- 18 in 2 x 4&#8242s)

All the angles are thirty degrees (except the bottom of the middle two x four&#8242s- see plans), and the roof supports overhang about an inch on the bottom. See ideas below for dimensions.

You can see in the photo over where I used 2 x four&#8242s for the vertical upper walls, but as I talked about, the ideas get in touch with for two x 2&#8242s. Both need to operate fine.

Your roof &#8220trusses&#8221 are two x 2&#8242s on every finish, and a two x four in the middle. Because our roof pitch is thirty degrees, we will cut one particular finish of the 2 x 2 boards at 30 degrees and depart the other finish square.

The middle two x 4 is reduce a small different, with 30 degrees on a single end, and 60 degrees on the other finish, with A? in. left square. This, and the exact same piece for the upper roof, are the only angled cuts in the entire roof that aren&#8217t thirty degrees. Make sure to check the ideas for specific directions on these cuts.

And, you&#8217ll do the identical thing on the best. 2 x 2&#8242s on the outer edges, and a two x four in the middle. The angled pieces are connected utilizing a pocket holes and screws. Or you could use a mending plate to keep your trusses with each other.

Framing the Hinged Sides

Now that we have our roof taken care of, we have one far more small piece to include to the puzzle before we&#8217re all framed. This two x four is where the hinge for the side attaches to.

Utilizing a reciprocating noticed, you&#8217ll cut a 3A? in. square notch on each end of the two x 4, and screw it in location correct under the floor support.

As soon as we have that 2 x 4 in area, we are all carried out framing (except for the nesting box), and it&#8217s commencing to look like a chicken coop!

Attach the Siding

After every little thing is framed, we will include our plywood siding. I lower all my plywood siding to dimension just before I utilised a brad nailer to attach it to my coop. We are only attaching the front, back, and a single side for now. We will attach the side that opens up later on.

I&#8217ve included all my dimensions in my programs, but you might want to double check out your plywood siding dimensions just before you lower it. Remember all the angles on the roof are thirty degrees.

Produce Siding for Hinged Side

For our side that hinges down, we will place collectively two pieces of plywood siding (45 in. x 23 in. every). Then we will frame the Outdoors with our 1 x two trim. The completed dimensions will be 23 in. x 90 in., which is somewhat smaller sized than our other side. It will be smaller to allow for the side to hinge down.

Set it aside until you are ready to paint. Or, if you think ahead, you may want to paint the siding prior to you attach the trim to the outdoors.

Attach the Plywood Roof

Your coop is taking shape!

Attach the Nesting Box

Your nesting box frame will be primarily 2 x 2&#8242s, with a two x 4 on the open edge, which is in which it will attach to your chicken coop, and the place you&#8217ll screw on your hinge for your nesting box roof. All of our angles on our nesting box are all 20 degrees. (Not to be confused with all the 30 degree angles in the real coop).

Minimize the plywood siding and staple it onto your frame. You will recognize the sides of the nesting box are notched out. We will use that notch to slide the nesting box into the hole in the coop, and attach the plywood siding sides to the within of the 2&#2152&#8242s we presently have in spot on the front wall of the coop.

This is what the nesting box seems to be like when it&#8217s all prepared to attach to the coop. But we won&#8217t attach it until finally almost everything is painted.

Paint the Chicken Coop

Go ahead and get every thing painted. I used Behr Marquee outdoor paint.

You&#8217ll also want to paint your 1 x 2 trim boards prior to you start off trimming. I employed the exact same outside paint, Behr Marquee, in white.

Add the Nesting Box

When almost everything is painted, you can add our nesting box. You will cut a hole in the front of your coop for your nesting box to attach to the coop.

I lower the hole in the plywood siding using my reciprocating noticed.

You&#8217ll want the nesting box to rest on the floor and frame of your chicken coop. So make positive you lower your nesting box 3A? in. from the bottom (3A? in. for the two x 4, and A? in. for the plywood floor).

When you have your nesting box in area, screw the 2 x 4 on the nesting box to the chicken coop using grabber screws.

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The view from the within shows how the nesting box attaches to the chicken coop frame. You want to screw the plywood to your frame so the nesting box is sturdy.

Add the Roof to the Nesting Box

Following your nesting box is securely attached to your coop, you&#8217ll add the roof, which will hinge open.

The roof is normal plywood, 33A? in. x 18A? in.

Screw your piano hinge onto the edge of your roof 1st, then attach to your nesting box. (Note: the photo above was taken after I added the trim, which will come in a number of methods.)

I also extra this 2 x 2, with a twenty degree angled finish to prop the roof open whilst we are gathering eggs. I screwed it on with a grabber screw that I didn&#8217t tighten all the way, so the board had freedom to hing up and down.

Include the Fold Down Side

Once our nesting box is complete, we can attach the side that folds down. I bet you were pondering if we have been ever going to put that piece on&#8230 nicely, now&#8217s the time!

You may well need to have a helper to hold the side up in area whilst you screw the piano hinge on. Screw a couple of screws in, then hinge it up and make positive it&#8217s straight prior to you finish screwing in all the rest of the screws.

Trim the Chicken Coop

This was my preferred component of the complete build, due to the fact it extra so much personality to the chicken coop and created it search genuinely cute! And we&#8217ve previously determined that cute issues!

Like I talked about above, I used standard one x 2&#8242s for my trim. I painted them prior to I reduce them. I&#8217m not going to include trim measurements, because if your trim is off by even A? in. it tends to make a huge variation. So just measure as you go.

When you&#8217re attaching your trim on, make confident you are flush and degree on the corners and edges. For the corners, I stapled 1 edge on, then manufactured certain my other corner piece match proper up against it, so there wasn&#8217t any overhang.

Right after every little thing is trimmed out, we can include a number of finishing touches. Like these window bolts to hold the door up. I additional a single on every side. You will also observe that I painted the edges of my plywood roof and my roof &#8220trusses&#8221 that will be exposed. I also painted my four x four legs. Not only does this make every thing far more waterproof, it&#8217s also a great deal cuter painted white!

Add the Ramp

I also extra a ramp for the chickens to get into the coop. I minimize a hole (about 10 x 10 in.) in the back of the coop, 3A? in. from the bottom. I employed a 6 ft. extended two x 8, and stapled scrap pieces every single 5 inches to generate the ramp. Then I painted it with my white outside paint. Add a one x two underneath the ramp to support it, then screw a four in. grabber screw at an angle via the ramp, into the help pieces.

Add the Roofing Materials

The final phase is to add your roofing. We chose to use metal roofing, since the value isn&#8217t considerably much more than shingles, but we loved the ease of installing and sturdiness. The color we chose is Evergreen.

And that&#8217s it. You&#8217re carried out! Now get your self some chickens and pretend like you&#8217re a true farmer!

If you liked this task, please be certain to verify out some of other tasks by Natalie on The Property Depot Weblog. Get a search at the other DIY projects we have here on the site, such as more projects from Natalie.

Browse the several kinds of chicken coops obtainable at The House Depot, too.